[HN Gopher] We're bringing Pebble back
___________________________________________________________________
We're bringing Pebble back
Thank you, Google. You didn't have to, but you did. We (the Pebble
team and community) are extraordinarily grateful. I wrote a blog
post about our plans to bring Pebble back, sustainably.
https://ericmigi.com/blog/why-were-bringing-pebble-back We got our
original start on HN
(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3827868), it's a pleasure to
be back.
Author : erohead
Score : 773 points
Date : 2025-01-27 20:11 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (repebble.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (repebble.com)
| fsflover wrote:
| The announcement from Google:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42845017
| dang wrote:
| That's actually a blog post from rebble.io. I added a link to
| the open-source repo to the top text there. Is there an actual
| announcement from Google?
| nickthegreek wrote:
| google announcement:
| https://opensource.googleblog.com/2025/01/see-code-that-
| powe...
|
| pebbleOS repo: https://github.com/google/pebble
| daemonologist wrote:
| I like the one wrist in the photo with no watch lol. (The
| header photo for the Google announcement is of a bunch of
| people huddled around the camera showing the Pebbles
| they're wearing, but one person is just holding out their
| arm sans Pebble.)
| tomasreimers wrote:
| The opening animation is so so so good.
| billybuckwheat wrote:
| Excited (cautiously) about this. Loved my Pebble Time and was
| gutted when 1) Pebble bit the dust, and 2) my Pebble vanished
| down that black hole things like small devices and the other sock
| invariably go down. If this happens, I hope they can keep the
| revived Pebbles just smart enough and rebuild the app ecosystem.
| Best of luck, folks. I'm cheering you on from the sidelines!
| bigiain wrote:
| Also cautious. Extremely cautions.
|
| I got rug pulled by "the pebble team" the first time, leaving
| me with 3 watches they effectively bricked.. Not gonna sign up
| for that again.
|
| (I got a refund on my last Pebble order. When the money showed
| up I drunk-ebayed a 2nd hand ~40 year old mechanical watch. I
| now have about 20 wind up or mechanical auto winding watches. I
| do have a few chinese ~$40 "smart watches" that do an OK job of
| notifications on my wrist, and a somewhat questionable job of
| heartrate and blood pressure monitoring, and one that produces
| totally random numbers for blood glucose reading whether it's
| on my wrist or not. I almost never wear any of those. I've got
| a Watchy kit, and open source epaper ESP32 watch, but I've had
| it maybe a year and haven't found the enthusiasm to assemble
| it.)
| ginkgotree wrote:
| HECK YES
| underseacables wrote:
| I have kept my Pebble WAITING for this day! Horayy!
| atYevP wrote:
| Lets goooooooo
| taeric wrote:
| First, let me say it is always fun to see people having fun with
| hobbies like this. Cool to see them making headway and having
| fun!
|
| I'm curious what the specific pitch is on this device? I have, so
| far, avoided Garmin in the watch space, but I'm growing very
| short on justifications for that. Would love to hear what the
| general value add for other options is.
| eab- wrote:
| The notifications aren't great, and the non-e-ink screen is a
| bit annoying. Also the low amount of physical buttons.
|
| But as someone who bought an OG Pebble and now has a Vivoactive
| 3, I think the fitness features are too nice to switch back
| fully to Pebble. Although I'll be very glad to see Pebble back!
| ClassyJacket wrote:
| Which watch has an e-ink(/epaper) display? I can only think
| of Watchy. Pebble was LCD.
| bitdivision wrote:
| No, pebble was definitely e-ink. And I think the most
| recent ones had colour epaper.
|
| Edit: Sorry, looking further down I see that they say
| epaper, which is not the same:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42845508
|
| It looks like they're memory in pixel (MIP) displays, which
| are basically reflective LCDs I think.
| jsheard wrote:
| > It looks like they're memory in pixel (MIP) displays,
| which are basically reflective LCDs I think.
|
| Reflective LCDs with embedded memory, hence the name.
| Normal LCDs need to be refreshed continuously, but MIP
| LCDs remember the last frame and efficiently refresh
| themselves, so the CPU is free to go into deep sleep as
| long as the display is static.
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| Not a "normal" one, though...
|
| "black and white memory LCD using an ultra low-power
| "transflective LCD" manufactured by Sharp"
| mikestew wrote:
| "Normal" enough that many of Garmin's watches still use
| MIP LCD...which is what the Pebble used.
| ramses0 wrote:
| Garmin Fenix 7 (and potentially Garmin Fenix 8 Solar) are
| reasonably button-y and kindof work "right" from a pebble fan.
|
| The biggest miss for most smartwatches is "buttons", "battery
| life" and "sunlight-readable screen".
|
| Buttons work without sight, buttons work in the shower (next
| track, volume, scrolling a notification, declining a phone
| call, stopping a timer), buttons can be "memorized", you can
| navigate buttons while riding a bike, and "button-centric"
| means you're focused on _only the essential_ capabilities. Ok.
| Next/Prev. Cancel/Back. Long-Press for shortcuts or
| confirmations. The discipline of designing for small, focused,
| essential interactions is so much better (when done well) than
| attempting to stab react components shifting around on your
| wrist or swiping in random directions on a slow-to-respond
| screen.
|
| Charging "every other week" means I can go on a weeks vacation,
| charge the watch before going, and not need to worry about or
| bring another charger.
|
| Sunlight-readable (non-lighted, non-distracting) screen means I
| can glance down and see the current time [with no wrist
| movement], and I don't have a bright light turning on and off
| (most of the time).
|
| The biggest miss for the Fenix compared to Pebble is/was "The
| Timeline" from Pebble. On the home screen, you could basically
| scroll through your upcoming calendar events to kindof keep you
| on track. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYZoWS0QxI8
|
| The biggest opportunity for "Pebble2.0" is the hybrid
| button/scroll feature from Garmin Fenix. Fenix has an option to
| "pinch" opposing buttons for ~3 seconds to enable/disable the
| touch screen. Additionally, the touch screen can be used for
| (eg) scrolling a map around. To me, this is great as I _very
| rarely_ want to accidentally brush the screen (or have a
| toddler poking at it) and messing with things... but being able
| to "opt-in" to touch-screen under specific apps or
| circumstances is actually a really cool compromise!
|
| Needless to say, I'm an insta-buy for Pebble, and very hopeful
| (especially since the O.S. is open source?!?!) that they'll
| steward us functionality-based watch nerds in the right
| direction!
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| The Garmin Fenix 8 is $1,099
| drawkward wrote:
| And worth every penny. (I say this as a former pebble and
| then rebble user.)
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I moved from Pebble to Casio F-91W. Worth every penny!
| drawkward wrote:
| Different users; different needs!
| camtarn wrote:
| Ha, I actually did the same, albeit after using a
| succession of disappointing Fitbits. In the end I
| realised that what I mainly cared about was having the
| time on my wrist, and I could leave everything else. So I
| ended up with the steel strap, EL-illuminated version of
| the F-91W.
| seltzered_ wrote:
| I'm not sure you can put it in MBA language like 'specific
| pitch' or 'value add', you had to try it and see if it felt
| right for you.
|
| The watch had a pretty coherent ux flow for a non-touchscreen
| device, and could be easily used with gloves on without even
| looking at the watch in some scenarios (e.g. shortcutting to
| music controls). It later paired some unique animations to make
| things feel friendly and a bit quirky (
| https://www.slashgear.com/pebble-hires-webos-designers-for-u...
| ).
|
| Also there was a pretty decent hobbyist/maker culture around
| the watch with the ideas of add-on accessories, etc.
|
| The challenge from a business standpoint mightve been needing
| to provide vc-backed startup returns without killing the
| culture that loved the product. I think they were trying to
| find a way to do a subscription for extra services.
| taeric wrote:
| Fair that I do seem to be asking for MBA speak. Not my
| intent.
|
| For me, the big mental block is that I can't think of much I
| want to do from my watch. A readable screen is obviously
| nice. So is advanced battery life. But, if I'm going to be
| dipping into health tracking, it seems Garmin is the baseline
| there.
|
| The UX flow is one that has me somewhat intrigued. How often
| are you interacting with the device? And for what reasons?
| ryukafalz wrote:
| The big ones for me were/are media controls and seeing
| what's next on my calendar. Because of the physical buttons
| I can pause my music/skip songs/adjust volume without even
| looking at the screen.
|
| Bluetooth headphones often have media controls but in my
| experience they tend to be hard to use on wireless earbuds
| due to their size. Using my Pebble is much easier. No other
| smartwatch I've used has done this quite as well.
| tetromino_ wrote:
| I went through two Garmins. Both failed in under 2 years
| (random freezes, random reboots, eventually leading to
| bricking). Fitness tracking and GPS would activate by
| themselves at random times for no visible reason. Buttons
| sometimes wouldn't register. The proprietary charging cable was
| terribly designed - after a couple months, the springs
| inevitably fail and it starts losing contact with the watch,
| needing fiddling with the exact angle, blowing on the contacts,
| weighing down or attaching with scotch tape when charging for
| an extended time, etc.; basically, one learns to treat Garmin
| charging cables as a short-lived consumable. The software stack
| at least on Android is awful, and it's very hard to get your
| data out of it.
|
| Considering how much these thing are hyped, I gaslit myself
| into thinking my first watch was a rare lemon, which is why I
| replaced it with another Garmin; but I won't be fooled again.
| rconti wrote:
| Their software is pretty bad but the hardware has been pretty
| bulletproof for me and I've certainly never had one randomly
| freeze or reboot in the decade+ I've been using them. These
| are forerunners though. I haven't used their "fancier"
| watches.
| zem wrote:
| I've had a garmin for ~3 weeks now. amy #2 use for a watch
| (after telling the time, of course) is to read texts without
| pulling out my phone, and so far the garmin ux for that has
| been way worse than the pebble's. (not really used the fitness
| features much other than step tracking, which the pebble also
| did)
| tombert wrote:
| Man, I got rid of my Pebble once they dropped support. I love my
| current smartwatch, but I would have loved the e-ink concept
| continuously iterated.
| jsheard wrote:
| > I would have loved the e-ink concept continuously iterated.
|
| I'm probably gonna sound like a broken record in this thread
| but the Pebble never used e-ink, it used a MIP LCD, and MIP
| never went away. Lots of sports watches use the exact same
| display technology from the exact same supplier (Sharp) to this
| day.
| tombert wrote:
| Fair enough!
|
| I was positive that some of the hype and/or marketing around
| it called e-ink but it looks like either my recollection is
| bad, or the hype was wrong.
| jsheard wrote:
| Pebble were always careful to use the generic term
| "e-paper", which some people assumed to be the same thing
| as e-ink, but it's a different technology. Besides, e-ink
| is actually a trademark so they couldn't call it that
| anyway.
|
| E-inks claim to fame is using zero power when static, but
| it has very sluggish pixel response times, while MIP LCDs
| use very little (but not zero) power when static and have
| fast pixel response times when dynamic.
| tombert wrote:
| Yep, that is probably where my confusion came from.
| culi wrote:
| Which watches currently use MiP LCD?
| jsheard wrote:
| Garmin, Coros, Suunto and Polar all make fitness watches
| with MIP displays. Some of them sell a mixture of MIP and
| OLED models though, so check the specs. If you want
| extremely long battery life above all else then the Coros
| Pace 3 is a good starting point.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| "MIP" ?
|
| I thought it was called transflective : for transmittive +
| reflective ?
| jsheard wrote:
| https://www.sharpsde.com/technologies-for/memory-in-
| pixels/m...
|
| MIP refers to the displays ability to retain the last frame
| indefinitely, unlike typical LCDs which need an external
| controller to refresh them constantly, even if every frame
| is identical to the last one.
| cafed00d wrote:
| Google has become cool again!
| joshstrange wrote:
| By dumping a codebase they aren't using?
| girvo wrote:
| My Pebble Time Round is still the single best piece of tech I
| have ever owned and used, and I miss it every day.
|
| If it can be brought back, I'd pay whatever is necessary, and I'd
| love to contribute now that I've spent many years doing embedded
| firmware development professionally!
| INTPenis wrote:
| I'm glad. For a decade I felt like an outsider because all I want
| is a very simple wearable device that doesn't require charging
| more than once a month and can display simple notifications from
| my phone, and the time.
|
| I loved the Pebble Time. After that I went over to Fossil Hybrid,
| which is pretty decent actually. I'm sure the app steals
| everything it can but at least the device works.
| jampekka wrote:
| Amazfit watches have done this for since 2016 or so. And
| cheaply.
| culi wrote:
| watch(es)? As in you've had to replace them regularly?
| Hopefully Pebble takes seriously the "sustainbly" part of
| their relaunch. What you're describing sounds like everything
| I wanna avoid
| mikestew wrote:
| WTF? No, as in "Amazfit makes more than one model of
| watch". It's a hard left into the weeds to come away with
| your interpretation.
| normalaccess wrote:
| I had an amazfit watch, didn't quite scratch the pebble itch
| and it has been relegated to the IT junk drawer. The thing I
| miss the most is the pebble display. I don't need heart rate,
| I don't need GPS, I don't need sleep tracking, I just want a
| watch that shows my notifications and has a great battery
| life.
|
| I am pleased they are coming back!
| kilroy123 wrote:
| Does this mean things have worked out with Beeper? What will
| happen with that? I noticed development seemed to have stopped.
| It's nothing like it was before.
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| Wasn't that bought by Automattic?
| erohead wrote:
| Things worked out! We got acquired. Heads down on merging -
| https://ericmigi.com/blog/why-were-bringing-pebble-back
| bullen wrote:
| Hi, please support vanilla linux phones this time?
| joshstrange wrote:
| I loved my Pebble al the way up to when the first Apple Watch
| came out. Yes, the battery life is nowhere near as good but the
| integration into the OS was way better and they have steadily
| added health features that I appreciate (fall detection, afib,
| etc). Maybe the Pebble could match some/all of that but I have my
| doubts. It was a great little device but longer battery life is
| just not that compelling to me.
|
| I mean sure, if you offer me hours/days more of battery I'm not
| going to turn it down but for me (and my lifestyle, which is not
| yours, I get that) I don't need more than ~16hrs. Anything longer
| than that just helps "catch" me if I forget to charge. And that
| right there gets to the crux of why >24hr batteries rarely matter
| to me. The only battery charging processes that work for me are
| either:
|
| * Every day
|
| * Only when it's dead or I know I'm about to use it
|
| With my Pebble I would regularly find it dead because I lost
| track of how many days it had been since I charged it and I'd
| have to charge it at an inconvenient time. I fixed this by just
| charging every night. So since I'm already in that habit, a
| longer battery doesn't do much for me. And in case you were
| wondering what types of things fall in the second category for
| me, it's things like USB battery packs, flashlights, smart house
| sensors that aren't wired, Airtags, etc.
| Avamander wrote:
| Apple watch feels soulless and corporate, the app (and feature)
| selection is still practically abysmal compared to what Pebble
| had to offer. The walls Apple has built have not helped at all.
| I haven't even found an actually fun small game to play on the
| loo on it. It's sad.
| ashirviskas wrote:
| Your strategy might work for you, but for me using a smartwatch
| that only had 30h of battery life was super painful. One of the
| reasons I use a smartwatch is for sleep tracking
| (+alarms/timers/flashlight/notifications), which means I can't
| charge it overnight and every day is too dynamic to always
| charge it at the same time. Plus I miss out on notifications
| and access to other features I use hourly when I put it on
| charge.
|
| With my Garmin and 2 week+ battery life, the first <15% battery
| warning still gives me 3 days to put it on charge or turn on
| battery saving and turn that into 5+ days which is plenty of
| time to find a convenient time for charging. I don't think it
| ever died on me due to low battery, unlike my previous smart
| watches. Ok, I lied, it died once on a month long trip, but a
| split USB cable and a hair tie let me charge it right back up.
|
| The low battery life might be ok if you do not use your watch
| for sleep tracking or alarms. Or flashlight. Gosh, I love my
| flashlight on wrist.
| vermarish wrote:
| I love the animation when you click "No" on "Do you want a new
| Pebble?". So extra.
| soxocx wrote:
| On the iPhone I get redirected to the Apple Store page for the
| Apple Watch. Nice humor.
| benbristow wrote:
| Same on Mac (Firefox)
| pohuing wrote:
| Same on android Firefox& Chrome
| jacobgkau wrote:
| I think it's just a static redirect, it sent me to the Apple
| Watch page in Firefox on Linux. But I also wondered if it
| would shuffle between a few different brands or something (I
| guess not).
| cjonas wrote:
| I got redirected to pixel
| HaZeust wrote:
| It looks like:
|
| - Chromium browsers (tested in Edge, Chrome, Brave) go to
| Pixel Watch,
|
| - Android devices go to Pixel Watch,
|
| - Apple devices go to Apple Watch,
|
| - Firefox brings you to Apple Watch.
|
| It might also be randomized, but that's what my tests got
| me, and only the Firefox one doesn't make humorous sense.
| forty wrote:
| I got pixel with Firefox for Android
| HaZeust wrote:
| >- Android devices go to Pixel Watch,
| splonk wrote:
| Looks it tries to identify Apple devices and goes to Pixel
| for everything else. const
| platform = navigator.platform || ''; const
| userAgent = navigator.userAgent || '';
| const isAppleDevice = /iPhone|iPad|MacIntel/.test(platform)
| || /iPhone|iPad|Mac
| OS/.test(userAgent); //
| Set redirect URL and message based on device
| const redirectUrl = isAppleDevice ?
| 'https://www.apple.com/watch' :
| 'https://store.google.com/product/pixel_watch_3?hl=en-US';
|
| Edit: per erohead, that change was made after your comment.
| Findecanor wrote:
| I got a tiny bit offended by the assumption that I'd rather
| have an Apple Watch.
|
| I'd think the ideal for me would instead be something in-
| between a Pebble and a Sensor Watch. Something hackable with
| _more_ battery life, that is a watch first (and a smartphone
| notification screen _never_ ). I wonder how far I could go
| towards that goal with the upcoming Pebble hardware and
| rewriting the OS kernel to sleep more.
| hbn wrote:
| What if you clicked no because you already own a Pebble?
| ctkhn wrote:
| Gotta be honest I feel like Garmin is the perfect balance of
| pebble vs apple watch
| WD-42 wrote:
| I like my instinct, but Garmin is so locked down, less
| hackable than even an Apple Watch.
| teruakohatu wrote:
| You can download the SDK and side load applications. No
| annual developer fee. Not sure how it's _more_ locked down.
| abcd_f wrote:
| Don't know about Apple Watch development, but the scope
| of what you can do with Garmin's SDK is limited, apps run
| in a VM, ie no native code with respective performance
| issues and, as important, their developer support is a
| complete and utter garbage.
|
| It's a lucky day when someone from Garmin graces Forums
| with their presence and bestows few sentences they think
| could pass for an answer.
|
| In other words, yeah, the SDK is free, you can side-load
| and it's not hard to write for, but you just can't write
| _much_.
| askvictor wrote:
| One example: I would like to program a (dumb/ID-only)
| RFID card into it to unlock a door. I can't as the NFC
| off limits to apps.
| knifie_spoonie wrote:
| I'm curious why you're saying it's less hackable?
|
| I've written my own little app for my Garmin watch, and I
| didn't need to get permission from them or pay them
| anything.
| abraxas wrote:
| I just gave away a very expensive Garmin to my son. Its
| feature set is to dream of. Its user interface is hot
| garbage. When I'm out on a hike or in the pool trying to just
| measure my fsking laps I need a single click option or
| something. Their paradigm of "button 1, button 3, button 5,
| long press button 4, button 1 again to confirm. Now you can
| push off the wall in 3... 2... 1" is beyond fucking stupid.
|
| Does anyone at Garmin actually practice sports? For a company
| with such great hardware they really need someone competent
| on the UX team. Throwing everything into more and more menus
| and submenus is not working.
|
| The specific watch I'm criticizing is Garmin Instinct 2x
| solar. The name is very ironic because there is nothing
| intuitive about using that watch. Like, at all.
| hparadiz wrote:
| All this plus not being able to see any data while offline.
| Super useful when you're 13,000 feet up on a mountain
| somewhere.
| elric wrote:
| Which data are you unable to view while offline? I never
| sync my Garmin watch to my phone, and I'm able to view
| all the data that interests me on the watch.
| abcd_f wrote:
| Any data in the app. It just doesn't work offline, at
| all. Like they looked at a book chapter on basics of data
| caching and went "nah, not doing that, that's too f#cking
| advanced".
| hobos_delight wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand. I have had an Instinct, Tactix
| Delta, and Tactix 7 Pro and have always been able to see
| the data without a phone or any network present.
|
| I love these watches after moving from an Apple watch,
| primarily for two reasons:
|
| 1) the battery life - I cant stand having to charge my
| watch every day or so - my (current) Tactix 7 will go
| ~3-4 weeks depending on how much GPS I use.
|
| 2) (this may be out of date) when I would use the Strava
| or Run app on the Apple watch, it would not signal when
| it had a GPS fix, which resulted in a number of runs that
| had a "teleport" at the start, resulting in messed up
| metrics. Only a small thing, but it really frustrated me.
| KiwiJohnno wrote:
| I'm assuming the parent poster is talking about using the
| Garmin Connect app, which does require connectivity. You
| are correct, the data is visible directly on the watch.
| KiwiJohnno wrote:
| Its worth clarifying you are talking about the data on
| the phone app, which does require connectivity as nothing
| is stored on the phone app, its all on Garmin's servers.
|
| However, most if not all of the data (recorded activities
| or health data) can be viewed directly on your watch,
| without any connectivity.
| foobarchu wrote:
| On the positive side, I adore that they sell (sold?) the
| forerunner series with all physical buttons and no
| touchscreen. Garbage software, but being able to click
| through by muscle memory instead of dealing with a touch
| interface in sunny conditions is essential to me. Fitbits
| and apple watches have just always been too reliant on the
| touch method for my liking.
|
| The software is pretty crap though, and forerunner in
| particular is way too locked down towards running
| activities.
| DwnVoteHoneyPot wrote:
| You have trouble with touch interface in sunny
| conditions??? Try cold conditions with gloves on, then
| you'll have real problems with the Apple Watch. Or wet
| conditions. Or fast conditions like on a bike where you
| rather not look to turn off the alarm. Sunny conditions
| is the only time my watch works fine.
| jorvi wrote:
| To be honest, that is not a problem unique to.. well.. any
| domain-specific company's tech stack.
|
| Raymarine their marine GPS navigation units are supposed to
| be very intuitive, but they lack so many "that would have
| been nice" features, and their UX has stuff where various
| buttons have click / double-click / hold / hold 2s / hold
| 10s, all to access different functions. Some of it isn't
| even written down in the manual.
| llimllib wrote:
| I don't swim, but I have done thousands of runs with my
| series of garmin watches and I can say that the UX for them
| is spectacular, everything is in a sensible place for me to
| do without thinking.
|
| Not sure what problems you've had with it specifically
| abraxas wrote:
| Getting into the swim app itself takes a couple of
| different buttons presses. But then it tries to be both
| too smart and too stupid at the same time. All I wanted
| to begin with was lap counting with a big number on the
| centre of the display. Can't configure it and can't even
| start to get it to count laps without some ceremony of
| setting up interval training and it only gets more
| convoluted from there. It's useless for an amateur like
| me who is not a peak performance athlete who needs to
| track every minutiae of their swim stats. How many people
| are they targeting with these this UX? Just people
| getting ready for the Olympics? There are hundreds of
| them. Hundreds!
| jeffbee wrote:
| My Garmin has a dedicated hardware button that says "LAP"
| echelon wrote:
| Feels a little bit salty to send customers to Google's
| competitor given the fact that Google provided the exit and
| also liberated the code. They didn't have to do that.
|
| A better "thank you" to Google would be to direct people to
| Fitbit.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| It's just a joke I think. But yeah linking to the pixel watch
| would have been nicer.
| erohead wrote:
| Good call, I just changed it to send to pixel watch if opened
| on Android or Windows!
| alex_young wrote:
| I think it's perfect actually.
|
| Google used to (still?) have a page internally where if you
| clicked on "I don't care about security" it sent you to the
| jobs page of a competitor that had suffered a notable breach.
|
| Very on point.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| I thought they killed FitBit and are doing Pixel Watch again
| instead
|
| https://store.google.com/product/pixel_watch_3
| eloisant wrote:
| The feature I use the most on my smartwatch is paying.
|
| So if they can bring contactless payments to their new Pebble
| they have my attention, otherwise it's useless to me.
| edarchis wrote:
| The amount of us who clicked no is amazing. I loved my Pebble
| Time but I'm going to give money to yet another Kickstarter and
| have it be killed shortly after.
| ratg13 wrote:
| Will you have nice looking ones? or will they all be
| "sporty/plastic" types?
| jaapz wrote:
| Pebble time round was very pretty IMHO, let's hope they go more
| that way this time
| mrinterweb wrote:
| I noticed my mouth had been hanging agape for a while while
| reading this. This is huge news. I feel like Pebble is the
| smartwatch that got it right the first time. So many smartwatches
| try to replace the phone instead of being an extension of the
| phone. Pebble seemed to better understand what is important than
| most smartwatches by being the extension of the phone, a focus on
| battery life and always on displays.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| You should have a look at he Garmin instinct 2x. They've nailed
| it.
| abraxas wrote:
| Bah! They nailed what exactly? It's so mofing complex to use
| I hurled it at a wall (literally) and then gave it away to my
| son. A $600 CAD watch that I could not stand to use without
| seething.
| brian-armstrong wrote:
| You might want to invest some of that money in anger
| management classes
| abraxas wrote:
| Ha! It's a testament to their great hardware though! I
| did not even scratch the watch by throwing it full force
| again a hard surface.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| The Withings ScanWatch was the right fit for me. Unfortunately
| the HR sensor stopped working recently and the water resistant
| seal broke, and it's out of warranty, so it's in a drawer. But
| IMO that was the right idea: analog time, discrete
| notifications, ppg/ekg sensors, 2-week battery life.
| averageRoyalty wrote:
| I loved my scanwatch, but it lacked the feature set of any
| smart watch for fitness tracking. I hope daily for them to
| release an improved version.
| morsch wrote:
| I like my Fossil watch. Similar to Withings, less health
| features, marginally smarter. Analog watchface in front of an
| eink display, 3-4 weeks battery life. Of course they got
| discontinued as well.
| lopis wrote:
| I don't like analog watches. I wish there was a watch like
| the basic casio I use but smart, but not huge and rugged like
| a G-Shock. If pebble releases a modern version of their
| watch, I might finally buy a smartwatch.
| abcd_f wrote:
| The _idea_ is nice. The implementation is a bit gaudy design-
| wise (subjective, granted) and flakey on the hardware side,
| with the HR sensor accuracy being the main issue.
| rossng wrote:
| So cool that you were able to make this happen. I backed Pebble
| on Kickstarter in 2012 and no smartwatch has ever really appealed
| to me since then.
|
| The screen on my original Pebble died a long time ago and I've
| always wondered whether I should try to bring it back to life.
| Perhaps now is the time!
| solarkraft wrote:
| I'm wearing my Pebble Time Steel right now and the biggest issue
| I have with it (maintaining the app) is arguably mostly Apple's
| fault.
|
| I was originally pissed that Pebble never sold replacement parts
| (actually I still am), but at least this hardware has been
| holding up extremely well.
| ggm wrote:
| Australia and Nea Zealand are "other" ?? Ok, I guess. If it's
| about economy scale, makes sense.
| AiAi wrote:
| This guy is now behind two of the products that I wish the most:
| the Small Android Phone and the Pebble watch. I hope they
| succeed! :)
| minimalengineer wrote:
| Great device -- lasted 4 years, woke me at 5 AM without
| disturbing my kids, and handled notifications well. Battery life
| was about a week, and it was swim-proof. That said, it was
| cheap... I hope this new version isn't part of the "dumb" device
| trend where people spend $500 just to detox, thinking the price
| will force commitment.
| xnx wrote:
| Pebble and Basis Peak (https://www.engadget.com/2016-08-09-basis-
| peak-obituary.html) are the two biggest smartwatch losses, and
| probably top 10 gadget losses of all time. Glad to see one of
| them might have a future.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Never heard of Basis Peak, but I've heard of Pebble for over 10
| years.
| trescenzi wrote:
| The Basis was incredible. It had heath monitoring features
| Apple is just getting to. I get why it died though. Their V2
| exploded on people's wrists...
| xnx wrote:
| I've had at least two watch purchases fully refunded because
| of similar issues (or lawsuits related to claims of issues at
| least): https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/05/lawsuit-
| claims-more-...
| xattt wrote:
| In an alternate timeline, we are all wearing Pebbles synced to
| our Palm Pres.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| This is amazing and I'm so glad this is happening. Please
| consider keeping the version of the Pebble OS running on the new
| watches open source to preserve access to it going forward, and
| if you can keep the hardware designs OSHW as well that would be
| even better.
|
| I love my Pebble and want them to stay available for as long as
| possible!
| addcn wrote:
| Congrats Eric!
| jai_ wrote:
| I'm somewhat confused to why Google needed to open source the
| original Pebble source code for this project to exist?
|
| Was it not possible to already create a comparible e-ink screen,
| long life battery, smart watch without the source code? Is it the
| pebble branding itself that is important somehow?
| marcel_hecko wrote:
| As per blog post:
|
| "PebbleOS took dozens of engineers working over 4 years to
| build..."
| lazerwalker wrote:
| Just basing things off of Android won't get you the "measured
| in days to weeks" battery life people appreciated about the
| Pebble, and building your own watch OS from scratch optimized
| for battery life but still supporting BLE connection to a phone
| sounds like a great way to spend several years.
| brk wrote:
| Looking forward to checking it out!
|
| I still have this email in my inbox from 2011, after a posting
| here on HN about your launch:
|
| Subject: You bought the first one! BODY: Congratulations...
|
| Great to see this happening again, best of luck!
| xanderlewis wrote:
| That's really cool.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Hell yeah!
| pedrocr wrote:
| I get a week of battery time out of my Fitbit Charge 5 with
| really good sleep tracking as well as reasonable tracking of
| exercise including swimming and GPS tracked runs. The screen is
| really nice but not always on e-paper and I can't really program
| it, so I guess there's some space to improve but was the pebble
| really that much better?
| drawkward wrote:
| The pebble battery life was >1 week, over a decade ago, so,
| yes?
| jetrink wrote:
| Don't underestimate an always on display. It's very nice to be
| able glance down to see the time or other info without making
| an exaggerated gesture first. It was what I appreciated most
| after I switched from Fitbit.
|
| As to the Fitbit in particular, they just aren't well made
| anymore and have a habit of dying just out of warranty. My last
| one got stuck in a reboot loop 14 months after purchase. I
| tried everything with support from factory reset to letting the
| battery fully die, but nothing helped. Google told me to throw
| it out and buy another. My previous one had battery issues
| after 2.5 years, despite never letting it go below 20%. They
| are considered disposable devices now and aren't built to last.
| bbor wrote:
| Literally the best news I've ever seen in my entire life. Great
| job, looking forward to making some apps this time around!!
| boredtofears wrote:
| I love my Apple watch because it does so well with tracking
| fitness stuff (particularly swimming) but it's a few years old
| now and is starting to get that laggy feeling interface that
| seems to be a hallmark of older Apple devices after they've gone
| through enough OS upgrades. I'm dreading the idea of spending a
| couple hundred bucks on another watch.
|
| Are the sensors/fitness programs on Pebble on-par with apple
| watches?
|
| I wonder if there's a way to migrate over my years of recorded
| data over.
| mikenew wrote:
| lol image creating a beloved tech product, growing the company to
| the point where it gets acquired by a tech giant, and then
| waiting until they spit it back out so you can start it all
| again.
|
| Congrats to Eric. This whole thing is so funny to me and I can't
| wait for my new Pebble.
| nejsjsjsbsb wrote:
| STL please!
| cliff_badger wrote:
| Fool me once...
| 2dvisio wrote:
| My pebble (my wife's pebble that she never wore) has lost some of
| its plastic cover a while ago (wear and tear) and won't turn on
| anymore. Truly looking forward to this project succeeding in its
| intent!
| cyanydeez wrote:
| I've got one. But I never got used to the idea of having a watch.
| orkj wrote:
| Tangentially related: I have been having a ton of fun programming
| for the sensor watch lately: https://www.sensorwatch.net/
|
| Granted it's far from as smart as pebble, but that battery
| life...
| tibbon wrote:
| I'm curious why they stopped in the first place. It seemed
| fantastic when it was out, and everyone loved them. Apple and
| Android watches are battery hungry and over-fluffed with features
| I don't want or need.
|
| I'd like to think that this time, it won't go away again?
| rekoil wrote:
| A parts manufacturer went bust at exactly the wrong time IIRC.
| mazambazz wrote:
| Even though I haven't used one in a really long time, the Pebble
| Time still stands out to me as something I wish I still had.
|
| It's an absolutely shame that Pebble was so innovative and
| functional, but couldn't reach mass market. But, I am extremely
| excited and happy that the Pebble team can start it again. I
| don't like Google for many things, but, I am grateful that the
| open-sourced PebbleOS. What a joyous day!
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| I'm still using it, in fact to the point that it's probably the
| biggest factor why I have been procrastinating on still staying
| on Android rather than trying alternatives like PinePhone.
|
| That the OS has been open sourced is great news (though it's
| sad it was on GitHub... and hopefully other communities around
| Pebble will spring up outside of platforms (article only
| mentions Discord and Reddit)).
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _It 's an absolutely shame that Pebble was so innovative and
| functional, but couldn't reach mass market._
|
| I think trying to reach "mass market" - or specifically, the
| market of people who are into fitness and sportsball - is
| largely what killed them. I'd like to believe that they
| could've catered to existing userbase a bit longer, grew a
| little more slowly but sustainably by doubling down on an idea
| of an ergonomic, battery-efficient, programmable smartwatch
| extension - a _tool_ , not a toy.
|
| Alas, maybe the whole thing was over once Apple, and Samsung
| got their marketing wheels spinning.
| Avamander wrote:
| > Alas, maybe the whole thing was over once Apple, and
| Samsung got their marketing wheels spinning.
|
| Totally possible, like Nokia vs the iPhone. Difficult to say
| for sure though, seeing vendors like Fitbit and Garmin still
| operate in the same space.
| zokier wrote:
| Pebble Time (Steel) Kickstarter is the only crowdfunding I
| truly regret missing out on. I remember seeing it at the time,
| but I think the reward levels I wanted were sold out or
| something.
|
| Even in retrospect it seems weird that it failed the way it
| did.
| bullen wrote:
| I hope they will support vanilla linux phones!
| Almondsetat wrote:
| What about who has the original one? What will be new for us?
| dom96 wrote:
| I still have an old Pebble 2 Flame edition that I Kickstarted
| somewhere. Unfortunately the rubber/plastic on it has started to
| degrade rapidly a year or so after I bought it so that was a
| shame.
|
| I'll definitely be watching this, but it will take a lot to make
| me replace my Apple Watch.
| abraxas wrote:
| Please for the love of all that's holy pay attention to us,
| swimmers. We may not be nearly as large a group as runners but we
| are very underserved by the tracker watch market. The world needs
| only so many glorified pedometers.
|
| I know that tracking strokes, laps and swim distance is much
| harder than steps. But it's doable because Apple mostly gets it
| right. Yet nobody beside Apple seems to have nailed the simple
| pool lap count algorithm (remember some prefer to flip turn while
| others prefer to turn above water especially at the shallow end)
| but the iWatch is so crap in so many other ways that the world
| really needs a competent swim tracker that doesn't need to be on
| a charger every 20 minutes.
|
| EDIT: Better yet, make it fully open with access to gyro/accel
| data so I can develop my own perfect, swimmer's app and maybe
| make some money as an added benefit.
| dtj1123 wrote:
| I was really hoping the Flipper team would champion something
| like this after they came out with that weird desktop busy panel.
| I've never understood the value proposition of a high pixel
| density, power hungry display on a watch. Can't wait to see what
| these guys can achieve with modern tech!
| cantsingh wrote:
| I loved the idea of Pebble watches, but I found them too bulky
| for what they offered. I hope the relaunch focuses on the same
| core functionality in a much much sleeker design.
| ge96 wrote:
| Watches are cool, I wish I was a watch person but I am not.
| Pinetime for example seemed neat.
|
| edit: there is one use case I'm considering it's for sleep
| tracking since my ideal life I sleep whenever and it seems my
| ideal operating mode is to be slightly sleep deprived (about 5
| hours each night) so it knows when I fell asleep and sets a 5hr
| timer from there.
| zem wrote:
| try getting or borrowing a cheap watch and wearing it while you
| sleep first. I definitely don't find it comfortable enough to
| bother with that feature.
| ge96 wrote:
| good point, I also can just sleep/wake whenever so it doesn't
| matter. I don't like being locked into 9-5 despite the world
| operating on that schedule I get why
| wilg wrote:
| The Apple Watch is just okay but sells like 25x per year Pebble's
| entire lifetime sales. I guess people love their Pebbles but this
| seems like a lot of effort for something most people probably
| don't want.
| tonymet wrote:
| capitalism serves all niches , not just "most people"
| MostlyStable wrote:
| That's what we are usually taught, but it doesn't actually
| seem to be the case. In the smartphone market in particular,
| as the market itself has grown, the offerings have all seemed
| to converge on a relatively uniform feature set. Niche phones
| for niche markets have slowly been weeded out. I don't
| understand _why_ this is the case, but empirically it seems
| to be so. That 's not to say that there are no weird, niche
| phones anymore, but it does seem to be the case that there
| are _fewer_ of them than in the past, when it seems to me
| that we should expect the opposite: as the market grows, the
| absolute size of proportionally tiny "niche" markets should
| also grow, which seems like it should support a greater
| diversity of weird phones.
| zem wrote:
| third party apps (particularly stuff like messaging,
| banking and government services) only supporting the main
| two operating systems is a big barrier to a new one getting
| any traction.
| tonymet wrote:
| smart watch category has plenty of players. google,
| samsung, garmin, Whoop, Withings, Oura are all doing well.
|
| It's funny with capitalism how for every purported failure
| there are 10 successes.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Who cares? As tonymet said, something doesn't need to be a huge
| market to be a viable business. Truthfully I would say that
| many problems in modern American business culture can be traced
| back to the false belief that one has to turn their business
| into a huge affair selling to masses of people constantly.
| unshavedyak wrote:
| I just wish integrations were better across the board. I'd buy
| a Pebble because i love eInk, but my apple watch is just going
| to be nicely integrated into my apps, ios, etc. Hell even my
| car as a Key.
|
| Lockin sucks as a user :/
|
| _(though there are of course differences between the target
| features between Apple Watch and Pebble, i 'm ignoring that)_
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Soooo.. I loved my pebble. And I still have my Kickstarter one.
|
| I don't think I'd _still_ want one now though. My Samsung
| smartwatch does a lot more. Heartrate, ECG, payments, GPS. And
| with an acceptable battery life too.
|
| Ps so Eric Migikovsky works for Google now? I thought he was
| working on beeper.
| LorenDB wrote:
| I looked at this page on my Quest 3. For some reason, that banner
| image looks 3D!
| xor-eax-eax wrote:
| Allerta inPulse too? ;-B
| tonymet wrote:
| I'd love a fully offline smartwatch with an offline GPS,
| calculator, wikipedia and other utilities.
|
| Knowing you have a map on your wrist that covers your local area
| with 2 weeks battery is a huge value. The two big reasons I don't
| trust my apps are (1) all of them can lock you out at any time
| (gaia, alltrails do this) and (2) half day battery is a liability
| for any map.
| chiengineer wrote:
| If there are any devices in the future I would like a surface
| competitor. Not surface laptop. Just a tablet thingy.
| davesmylie wrote:
| Cool. I wrote a few watch faces for this back in the day. One of
| them - ruler watch face was moderately popular.
|
| Not sure what it is about the subsequent breed of smart watches
| (android, apple etc), but none of them seemed to scratch quite
| the same itch.
| afavour wrote:
| I still have my Pebble Time Round in a drawer somewhere. I've
| long since switched to an Apple Watch but despite all the extra
| features I still consider it to be an inferior complete product
| to the Time Round. I really hope this works out.
| Aaronstotle wrote:
| I can't wait, I never got a Pebble but it was the most
| interesting smart watch style to me.
| rcarmo wrote:
| Oh man. I own an Apple Watch, but I made it a point years ago to
| buy an OG Pebble off eBay to be my first smartwatch, and the
| sheer elegance of the UX is still something I pine for. I very
| dearly miss the daily timeline, which was sheer UX brilliance.
|
| Only niggle: Portugal isn't on the list, but yeah, right... Other
| it is.
| ata_aman wrote:
| I lost mine somewhere in SF while visiting years ago but I
| absolutely loved it. I won it at a hackathon after making a tiny
| Pebble app where you could keep score during a soccer game as a
| referee by pressing the side buttons. App development and
| publishing was extremely easy on their app store.
| xavdid wrote:
| Whoa, I loved that app! I used to track scores for intramural
| games in college. the UI was so clean and simple!
| thoop wrote:
| Love this!
|
| After my Pebble I tried an e-ink "Watchy" from SQFMI
| (https://watchy.sqfmi.com/) thinking that the battery life would
| be great but the battery only lasted a few days.
|
| I've been wearing a Bangle 2
| (https://www.espruino.com/Bangle.js2) which feels closest to
| recreating my Pebble. It has super long battery life and feels a
| lot like my Pebble did, but doesn't have the polish of the pebble
| UI and animations.
|
| Can't wait to get a new Pebble!
| Pfhortune wrote:
| So excited for this! No other smartwatch comes close to the UX of
| pebble OS. Tiny touchscreens are demonstrably a bad idea.
|
| Garmin and Casio have plenty of button-only devices, but they
| seem to not really understand how to make a UI flow well. They
| all feel kludgy and arcane to use. Whereas pebble was a very
| simple layered menu system without any over-complication.
| zem wrote:
| oh wow, I just bought a garmin a couple of weeks ago after it
| seemed like the rebble app was going to be increasingly
| unsupported on new android versions, but if this takes off I'll
| switch back without a second thought
| maxglute wrote:
| More buttons please.
| TechPlasma wrote:
| Yeas! I moved over to the Garmin 265 since it felt like the most
| pebble-like watch. But the controls aren't nearly as immediately
| intuitive. Pebble nailed the OS and nothing has ever matched it.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| I'm on my second and last Fitbit-- both have had wretched build
| quality and ultimately failed on the screens. I had resigned
| myself to holding my nose and eventually getting an Apple Watch,
| but maybe I'll instead hang on for the new Pebble, whenever it
| arrives.
|
| This is great news, Eric.
| hooverd wrote:
| Yay. The Pebble was my favorite smart watch by a long shot.
| fny wrote:
| Please consider making an e-ink bank. I have a Sony FES with that
| feature, and it would be a dream to have a watch with a hackable
| band.
| elric wrote:
| Will it have a decent heart rate sensor? I have a very expensive
| Garmin smartwatch, and the heart rate sensor is absolute shite. I
| mean it's pretty accurate on average during steady-state
| anything. But if you're doing any kind of interval training or
| weight lifting, the readings are often utter gibberish and
| completely inactionable.
|
| Looking forward to seeing your progress.
| egeres wrote:
| I still keep around my pebble time (which I mostly use as a timer
| because I love the UX experience) and I'm surprised about how
| well the battery still works. Seeing devices such as the mi band
| 9 having a battery that lasts around 20 days, I can't help but
| wonder how much longer could last a new pebble
| lawki wrote:
| I'm still disappointed that the pebble core was pulled. A pebble
| like watch with connectivity might get me interested again.
| Molitor5901 wrote:
| I bought a Pebble watch long after support stopped because I
| wanted to have something I considered a piece of technology
| history. Never thought it would come back and I could change the
| faces, update it, and make it last. This is wonderful news.
| amazingamazing wrote:
| ironically when I had a pebble time, the battery life was so good
| I'd get used to not charging and would have days where the
| battery would die due to forgetting. now that I have an apple
| watch I've never had that happen, and ironically it's because the
| battery doesn't last a long time.
| pulkitpulkit wrote:
| please add a button to start a GPT voice mode conversation or
| start dictating / recording an audio note -- too things I'd love
| to be able to do more on-the-go without having to dive into my
| phone!
| whyenot wrote:
| I am super excited about this! Thank you Google + Eric +
| everyone! My old Pebble is long gone, so the possibility of maybe
| buying a new one is awesome.
| ghilston wrote:
| I loved my pebble and ended up backing the original product and
| buying a second. Both broke and when I reached out to support
| they said there was nothing they could do...
|
| I loved the devices but that put a pretty bad taste in my mouth
| for longevity
| xavdid wrote:
| It's great to see them coming back! I adored my Pebble(s). 2 fun
| stories:
|
| 1. Pebble supported 3rd party watch faces based on a file. There
| was a great little site that let you use a visual UI to build the
| file and, if done from your phone, upload it right to the watch.
| Once, when out at midnight beer launch, I made a custom face for
| the beer and won a little keychain from the brewery. My Apple
| watch could never.
|
| 2. Once time in 2014, I ran into some Pebble engineers at an ice
| cream shop in Palo Alto, they spotted my watch, they bought my
| scoop! Fun, weird little Silicon Valley moment.
| nojvek wrote:
| I have a Withings watch which has about 30 days battery life.
| Granted the display is tiny but I love that it looks like a
| normal watch and gets out of the way.
|
| I'd buy a Pebble if it hit 14d+ battery life with health tracking
| features.
| hellomiakoda wrote:
| Please, for the love of privacy, make this new Pebble work with
| Linux phones.
| hellomiakoda wrote:
| Please, for the love of all things privacy, make this new Pebble
| work on Linux Phone
| tomaskafka wrote:
| Awesome! The first Pebble absolutely fascinated me by having a
| hackable, C-running watch on my wrist.
|
| I spent days fine tuning the heuristics of my simple step
| detection algorithm in the first watchface where I thought
| "seeing your daily step count next to time sure is awesome". And
| tens of thousands of people thought so as well - this was one of
| the signs what the health-tracking wrist device is about to
| become.
|
| It was incredible that even the first model allowed you to run a
| 30 samples per second accelerometer sampling and classifying the
| movement, 24/7, and still lasted days. No other watch offers a
| similar level of hackability.
|
| And as the time progressed, Pebble become a first platform to get
| Weathergraph - my graphical weather watchface, that was then
| ported to Garmin (as Pebble shut down), and then to Apple Watch
| widget (as it became a capable platform with the introduction of
| standalone watch-apps in watchOS 6), and then to iOS app &
| widget, where it now lets me live a life of indie developer,
| after a series of corporate design/PM/dev jobs.
|
| Thank you for that, Eric & Pebble team.
|
| I still keep my developer edition Pebbles with my name printed on
| the back (great touch!) in my shelf, and will always remember Jon
| Barlow, one of the best developer advocates I ever encountered.
|
| Godspeed!
| Warns wrote:
| I'm so happy and excited about this. Garmin has been serving well
| but I want Pebble, now!
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